ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces biosocial criminology and argues that it is the criminological paradigm for the 21st century. It is a paradigm that distinguished criminologist Frank Cullen has called “a broader and more powerful paradigm” than the reigning strictly environmental paradigm. It is a paradigm that takes advantage of new technology from the natural sciences to unite nature and nurture into a seamless whole. It is mainly a philosophical chapter examining the objections to the biosocial approach, sweeping across other disciplines, from anthropology to medicine. The chapter also looks at various philosophical concepts, such as reductionism, holism, and emergence, and it also examines and refutes criticisms from critical criminologists, such as that biosocial criminologists are attempting to cement the Lombrosian project and imprison criminology in “etiological space,” and that criminology and biology are incommensurate.
